e-zine nEUws, 38th edition

14 July 2004

• European Commission: "Reproductive Health is Midwife of Prosperity"
• EU and Who Vow to Work Together in Sickness and in Health
• European Union Action Against HIV/AIDS
• Barroso and Reproductive Health and Rights: The Great Incognito
• Aid to Combat HIV/AIDS Increases
• Service Procurement Notice: "Multiple Framework Contract to Recruit Technical Assistance for Short-Term Expertise for Exclusive Benefit of Third Countries Benefiting from European Commission External Aid"
• European Court of Human Rights Denies Fetus Rights Ruling
• Recent SRHR Events in Brussels

European Commission: "Reproductive Health is Midwife of Prosperity"

As a UN survey finds that that the decade-old International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) has moved reproductive health to the very heart of government policy, Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Poul Nielson says that the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without the full implementation of the ICPD agenda.

Mr Nielson was in Geneva (…) to attend a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) meeting at which a new survey to gauge the success of the groundbreaking ICPD agenda, on its tenth anniversary, was launched. The report showed that reproductive health and rights are becoming an integral part of national agendas around the globe, and more policy-makers are committed to safe motherhood.

"The Global Survey shows that countries have taken full ownership of the ICPD programme and a significant amount of progress has been achieved during the past decade," said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid. It also found that population and gender issues are becoming more institutionalised, and women are becoming more involved in development programmes and policies.

"Some findings are particularly encouraging," Mr Nielson observed, referring to the growing integration of the ICPD agenda into poverty reduction strategies, the near universal adoption of measures to protect the rights of women, and the tackling of gender-based violence.
Redrawing the policy map. The ICPD gathering, which took place in Cairo (EG) in 1994, shifted the focus of population policy away from human numbers and towards human beings. It recognised that population and development were inextricably tied. The ICPD put education and health – particularly reproductive health – issues on the political map, as well as the empowering of women and gender equality.

In 2000, world leaders hammering out the well-know Millennium Development Goals – which included the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, and combating communicable diseases – acknowledged the importance of addressing the population and reproductive health issues outlined by the Cairo Conference. "There is no doubt in my mind that implementation of the ICPD Agenda is vital for achieving the Millennium Development Goals," Mr Nielson observed.

Although there has been major progress, the report points to financial and other obstacles still impeding national development efforts. "Despite these remarkable achievements, we must not hide from the fact that much work remains to be done," Mr Nielson said.

"The challenge during the next ten years is to build on this progress and ensure that investments reach the poorest segments of the population, especially women and young people," Ms Obaid projected.

Sources: EU and UNFPA sources cited by the European Commission

For more information:

Commission press releases
UNFPA press release
Millennium Development Goals

EU and Who Vow to Work Together in Sickness and in Health

The European Commission and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have just forged a new strategic partnership to strengthen their joint efforts to improve health and combat poverty in developing countries.

Recognising that health is a vital component of prosperity, the new agreement – which was signed at the beginning of July – seeks to accelerate the fight against poverty by increasing the efficiency of health-related aid, and by encouraging developing countries to assume greater ownership of the development process.

"The European Commission places a high priority on improving health in developing countries, and recognises that this is an essential pre-requisite for development," said Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Poul Nielson. "The WHO is uniquely placed… to support countries in putting in place a basic set of… effective interventions… that can make an enormous difference"

"[This] marks another step in our increasing co-operation with the European Commission," said WHO Director-General Lee Jong-Wook. "[The] WHO particularly looks forward to working together with the Commission in supporting developing countries to develop and strengthen their health systems."

A natural alliance

The partnership accord is the latest manifestation of an increasingly close relationship which has seen, in recent months, EU provide the UN health body with €25 million for an essential medicines campaign, as well as being a major backer of the fight against polio.

"[This] agreement further strengthens the already fruitful relationship of co-operation between the EU and the WHO," said Health Commissioner David Byrne. "The EU and [the] WHO share goals and are natural allies. It makes sense that we join forces to meet the challenges that confront public health systems today."

The new partnership will tackle three main priority areas: the health of mothers, reversing the advance of the world's deadliest communicable diseases (including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria), and strengthening information systems on the performance of health services.

This agreement comes against the backdrop of an evolving EU-UN relationship. Last year, the two bodies revamped their Financial and Administrative Framework Agreement (FAFA) which manages the way in which European Commission funds are handled by the UN system. The streamlined FAFA has helped slice through red tape by shifting the focus away from project funding to broader programme financing.

Sources: EU sources cited by the European Commission

For more information:

Commission press release
WHO
United Nations

European Union Action Against HIV/AIDS

Brussels, 8 July 2004. The framework for the European Community's approach to the three major communicable diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB)) in third countries is the EC Programme for Action on Communicable Diseases, which is based on the September 2000 Communication "Accelerated Action targeted at major communicable diseases within the context of poverty reduction".

The Programme establishes for 2001-2006 and as part of an expanded international effort, a broad and coherent Community response to the global emergency caused by HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. The three diseases kill more than 6 million people per year, affect the poorest populations most and undermine global health and sustainable development.

The Community response entails a comprehensive set of actions to increase: (i) the impact of existing interventions; (ii) the affordability of key pharmaceuticals; (iii) research and development of specific global public goods to confront HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB at the regional, national and global levels (such as an AIDS vaccine); and (iv) the effectiveness of global partnerships and regional co-operation. (…)

For the full press release, please go to: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/04/174&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Barroso and Reproductive Health and Rights: The Great Incognito

As you know, the European Council of 29th June nominated the Portuguese PM José Manuel Durão Barroso as President designate of the European Commission.
Depending on the vote of the EP, Barroso will become the next President. Even though it is unlikely that the choice for one person or another will have a significant impact on the stance of the EU towards SRHR in the next five years, we were still curious to find out what Portuguese civil society thought about him:

According to the organisations called, Barroso, his government and his party generally tended to be rather open and positive to SRHR issues. Only a small party, the coalition partner PP (Partido Popular) has been strongly “anti-choice”. This party, however, would not stand great chances in an upcoming Portuguese election, which might now take place sooner than the foreseen 2006 date.

Barroso and his party might be predominantly liberal in their outlook and agenda, largely liberal positions were held on matters ranging from (emergency) contraception to youth sexuality, but on matters like (illegal) abortion they have not been "that brave". This is mostly due to the Catholic electorate and the Church, for whom those matters are by definition "off limits".

A new referendum on abortion for example was stopped due to the influence of the coalition partner PP and its backers from Catholic groups. Since Barroso himself has been sensitive to the problematic of abortion, and particularly illegal abortion, a further referendum has been envisaged for 2006.

Additional information may be found in an article entitled "Abortion: the Portuguese case" by Duarte Vilar of APF, published in the May 2002 edition of "Reproductive Health Matters."

• http://www.portugal.gov.pt/Portal/EN/Primeiro_Ministro
• http://static.highbeam.com/r/reproductivehealthmatters/
  may012002/abortiontheportuguesecase/index.html 
• http://www.apf.pt

Source: Wolfgang Lange, DSW

Aid to Combat HIV/AIDS Increases

07/07/2004 - A new study by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) demonstrates a clear trend toward rising aid donations to fight HIV/AIDS. The latest definitive figures, combining the aid efforts of major bilateral and multilateral donors, show an allocation of US$2.2 billion in 2002 to control and combat the pandemic in the developing world.

Bilateral aid rose steadily, from US$ 822 million in 2000, to US$1.1 billion in 2001, and to US$1.35 billion in 2002 – a 64% increase over 3 years. Multilateral aid rose from US$314 million in 2000 to USD 460 million in 2002, and total contributions to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria reached US$917 million by the end of 2002, 60% of which will target HIV/AIDS.

The report, Analysis of aid in support of HIV/AIDS control, 2000-2002, presents the first comprehensive overview of aid allocations to AIDS activities by donor and recipient countries. It is being released in advance of the XV International AIDS conference, to be held in Bangkok 11-16 July 2004.

These donations are funding prevention, testing, treatment and care services, as well as social and legal assistance for people affected by the AIDS pandemic. There is a growing trend to combine testing, counselling and treatment activities, and to mainstream them into broader aid to fields such as education, rural development, agriculture, and transportation. Aid is also fostering international collaboration between health specialists in donor and recipient countries, enabling them to share information and experience which will ultimately provide better quality of care for all AIDS sufferers.

Between 2000 and 2002, donors worked with 140 recipient countries to fight AIDS, concentrating the majority of their aid efforts on 25 countries - 10 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. In total, 75% of all aid related to combating AIDS was allocated to Africa. Nigeria was the largest overall recipient, at US$91 million per year, followed by Kenya at US$61 million, Uganda at US$53 million, and Zambia at US$43 million per year.

The U.S. was the largest bilateral donor with contributions averaging $793 million per year in 2000-02, followed by the U.K. at $337 million, Japan at $161 million, and the Netherlands at $135 million. The International Development Association of the World Bank was the largest multilateral donor ($237 million from core funds), followed by UNAIDS ($88 million), the EC ($53 million) and UNICEF ($44 million).

For further information, journalists are invited to contact Julia Benn, OECD, Paris (tel. 331 45 24 90 39) or Jean-Louis Grolleau, OECD, Paris (tel 331 45 24 90 56) or Dominique De Santis, UNAIDS, Geneva (tel. +41 22 791 4509). The report is available on the DAC website at address http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/crs/hivaids and UNAIDS website http://www.unaids.org.

Source: OECD

Service Procurement Notice: "Multiple Framework Contract to Recruit Technical Assistance for Short-Term Expertise for Exclusive Benefit of Third Countries Benefiting from European Commission External Aid"

EuropeAid issued a new service procurement notice. The objective of the multiple Framework contract is to provide short-term operational services on the spot for the exclusive benefit of third countries receiving external aid (Central and Eastern Europe, Balkans, New Independent States, Latin America, Asia, Mediterranean, Africa, Caribbean, Pacific etc.).

The technical domains concerned include Health (Lot 8):

LOT 8 - Health

European Court of Human Rights Denies Fetus Rights Ruling

 
On Thursday 8 of July, 2004, the European Court of human Rights made a ruling connected to a complaint against France relating to the protection of a foetus. The court rejected an appeal to grant full human rights to a foetus, saying national governments must decide the issue themselves. The decision takes into account large differences over abortion across the continent, as well as the fact that accepting a right to life of a fetus could make abortions illegal in all 45 countries that recognize the court's jurisdiction. The applicant, a French citizen, MS. Thi Nho Vo, denounced the refusal of the French authorities to qualify as involuntary homicide a miscarriage she had experienced as a consequence of a visit to a hospital. According to court documents, Ms. Vo went to a hospital in Lyons on Nov. 21, 1991 for an examination when she was six months pregnant. On the same day, another woman of Vietnamese origin with the same last name, Thanh Van Vo, was due to have a contraceptive device known as a coil removed from her uterus. Ms. Vo did not speak French and her gynecologist mistook her for the other patient. He pierced her amniotic sac, making a therapeutic abortion necessary. Vo filed the case with the European court in December 1999. Being of the opinion that a foetus should be recognized as human being from the moment of conception, she argued that the right to the life, guaranteed in article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights, must be extended to the foetus. The 17-judge panel ruled that when the right to life begins "was a question to be decided at national level ... because the issue had not been decided within the majority of states" which have ratified the European Convention on human rights. The court said that at the European level, "there was no consensus on the nature and a status of the embryo and/or fetus." Vo took the case to the European court after France's highest court overturned the doctor's conviction on a charge of involuntary homicide, ruling the fetus was not yet a human being entitled to the protection by criminal law.

Two very interesting events on sexual and reproductive health issues took place in Brussels early this month.

Last 1st July, the second 'Annual NGO Meeting on the EU response to the Global AIDS pandemic', organised by the Stop Aids Alliance took place in Brussels. The meeting brought together NGOs from Western and Eastern Europe working on HIV/AIDS. The aim was that they could learn more about the agendas of the next few European Presidencies from the relevant government staff and receive a briefing from the European Commission on how these aims fit with its work. When opening the meeting, Harald Sprenger, Policy Adviser of the Stop Aids Alliance, emphasised that 'the next 18 months present us with a very important opportunity to influence the agenda of the Council to ensure that the EU does more in support of the global epidemic'. The meeting offered as well an opportunity for NGOs to strategize on their existing lobbying plans and how they could come together to work on these issues. NGO representatives from the Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK talked about the methods that they did/would employ to this end. A full report will be published at http://www.stopaidsalliance.org

For further information on this event, please contact Marta Monteso at marta@stopaidsalliance.org.

Only a few days later, on July 5th, IPPF EN organised an equally motivating Roundtable on "Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at the heart of the European Development Policy. The importance of the ICPD Programme of Action for Poverty Reduction" at "The Centre" in Brussels. Speakers were Vicky Claeys, IPPF EN Regional Director, Karin Heisecke, UNFPA Programme Coordination Officer, Lieve Fransen, Head of Unit Social and Human Development at the European Commission's DG Development, Martha Roussou, European Advocacy Manager for MSI, Elizabeth Bennour, IPPF EN Programme and Advocacy Director and Kevin Osborne, Senior HIV/AIDS Expert with IPPF. The day concluded with a presentation by Eef Wuyts, IPPF EN EU Liaison Officer on "Growing Challenges for the SRH community in the EU environment" and with a group discussion on how SRHR NGOs and the Representatives for Development can help each other.

For further information, please contact Eef Wuyts at ewuyts@ippfen.org